Beggars, bums, hobos
SUCH embarrassment the other evening at the Street Shelter for
the Over-Forties. It was dusk and various citizens had assembled
in the beer garden to hoist a pint or two, when suddenly there was
a rattling at the wooden latticing of the perimeter fence.
A figure was trying to attract the punters' attention.
"Damn beggars!" somebody said, "You can't have a quiet pint
these days without a bloody hobo trying to horn in."
"Shame on you!" said a dishy little blonde. "Here we are enjoying
ourselves and we can't think of the people who've got nothing.
Give him R5!"
"R5! For a tramp? You give money to these bums and they'll never
leave you alone."
"You're horrible! He's a homeless person and you call him a tramp
and a bum. I hate you! I'm going to give him R5 myself."
But before she could reach the lattice-work fence the figure had
disappeared, to re-appear in the gateway.
Who was this beggar/hobo/tramp/bum? Why, none other than the
guvnor/gaffer/landlord – owner of the establishment. He'd been
trying to attract the attention of whoever it was who'd blocked him
from his parking.
Such embarrassment. And he just missed getting the quickest five
bucks he ever made.
Lizards
HOW sad and shameful that six tiny lizards from Mexico should
have died most horribly during the postal strike as they sat
crammed into an unventilated box for four months at OR Tambo
airport (one did half-survive but had to be euthanased).
Okay, the smugglers were not to have anticipated the strike, but
who stuffs living creatures into envelopes or boxes and puts them
in the mail?
The SPCA and the police have apparently traced the addressee.
Let the punishment fit the crime!
Let him be wrapped in brown paper and posted to Mexico – not air
mail because there's no postal strike in Mexico – but surface mail.
A slow tramp steamer will do.
Ol' Man River
READER Perry Webb says recent discussion of the
disappearance from the agenda of the hydro-electric potential of
the Tugela Basin makes a very valid point.
"Remember, not only would cheap electricity be generated
but tens of thousands of jobs would be generated too (no pun
intended)."
However, he says I miss the point about the whole thing. The
studies are being ignored because they happened during the
apartheid era.
Yes, and that darned Tugela River and all its tributaries kept
flowing during the apartheid era. Sies!
Philosophy
SOME uplifting philosophy comes this way:
A real woman is a man's best friend. She will never stand him up
or let him down. She will reassure him when he feels insecure and
comfort him after a bad day. She will inspire him,
She will enable him to express his deepest emotions and give in
to his most intimate desires. She will make sure he always feels
the most handsome man in the room, the most confident, sexy,
seductive and invincible ...
No wait ... Sorry, I'm thinking of whisky. It's whisky that does all
that. Never mind ...
Overload
DON'T snigger at the way older people tend to keep forgetting
things; nor at the way they walk from room to room, wondering
what they went there for.
The brains of older people seem to work slowly because they
already know so much, the scientists say. So much is stored there
that it becomes difficult to access and retrieve, the way an over-full
computer hard drive struggles to retrieve information.
The brains of older people do not get weak, says Dr. Michael
Ramscar, who has led the research. "On the contrary, they simply
know more."
As for the walking from room to room thing, that's not a memory
problem, it's just nature's way of ensuring that older folk get
enough exercise.
And as I was saying ... What was I saying?
Tailpiece
A PSYCHIATRIST is giving a patient the ink blot test.
"What's this picture?"
"A nude lady in the bath."
"And this one?"
"A girl taking off her bra."
"And this?"
"A huge pair of boobs. What a pair!"
"You know, I'm afraid I have to diagnose you as a sex maniac."
"A sex maniac? I like that! Who's the one showing the dirty
pictures?"
Last word
I believe that every human has a finite number of heart-beats. I don't intend
to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.
Buzz Aldrin
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